Ex-Donna Karan CEO Aronsson to move business to Detroit, work on fashion hub

A native Detroiter who has spent three decades in New York City's fashion and luxury apparel industry plans to shift his consulting business to Detroit as he formulates plans for creating a high-end clothing design and production hub in the Motor City.

Mayor Mike Duggan has tapped Jeffry Aronsson to lead a committee that will create a "comprehensive actionable plan" by February for scaling growth in Detroit's fledgling fashion industry and attracting bigger-name designers to the city.

Aronsson's re-engagement with the city where he grew up working in the family-run Carl's Chop House on Grand River Avenue was announced by the mayor Thursday morning at Detroit Homecoming, a yearly gathering of former Detroiters.

"This is a homecoming — I'm coming home to bring it to Detroit on a really exciting project for the city," said Aronsson, whose family's roots in Detroit date back to the late 19th century. "It's all part of what Detroit is … innovation, rising up, changing, reimaging, reinvention. And that's what we're going to do with the apparel fashion and luxury industry here in Detroit."

Aronsson, 64, moved away from Detroit in the late 1970s to pursue a master's degree in tax law at New York University and went to work in the fashion industry, where he's held executive positions at Marc Jacobs International LLC and Donna Karan International, makers of the DKNY women's clothing brand.

For the past decade, he's been a consultant in the industry through his firm Aronsson Group Capital, which specializes in helping fashion and apparel companies with the operational and financial ends of their businesses.

Duggan said he met Aronson in New York City earlier this year and they got to talking about the potential for disruption in the apparel industry and how it reaches into different sectors, such as the auto industry for seating and covers.

"(Aronsson) said 'I think there's a huge opportunity to employ Detroiters,'" Duggan said. "There's an opportunity for skilled work in pattern-making and design. There's an opportunity for unskilled work. There's a whole range of jobs."

Tommey Walker, maker of the popular "Detroit vs. Everybody" T-shirts has already joined Aronsson's steering committee.

Aronsson said the business development plan he'll create for the city will be aimed at helping clothiers like Detroit vs. Everybody LLC and Detroit Denim Co. grow and creating buzz to attract companies in an industry that is "ripe for disruption."

"My biggest wish list is to take some of the early stage and developing businesses here that are having difficulty scaling because of the lack of manufacturing and production engineering type of needs that they have — and to grow Detroit brands," Aronsson said. "In the process, people will take note."

Aronsson said he's committed three years toward the project of building up Detroit's fashion and apparel business.

"If he's not done, we'll re-up him," Duggan told reporters.

"There's a lot of work to do, and the first is about planning and allowing for the pivots for the unexpected situations that might arise," Aronsson said.